A product may be tested for quality assurance according to a set of predetermined test cases, usually stored in a test case database. If the test indicates that that product has a defect, the defect is tracked in a defect-tracking database. Usually, the product operates in conjunction with some external software or hardware modules. When the product shows a defect as a result of a test procedure, the defect may be due to the external issues, while the product may be in fact free of any defect. A great deal of time and research is usually required to determine the cause and the origin of these external issues. For example, if a software product runs on a phone, some known external issues associated with the phone may cause the software to not operate as expected. Considerable time and effort would be saved if the external issues are readily known before a product goes under testing.
There is a need, therefore, for an efficient mechanism for searching a compilation of known external issues.